A 48,500-Year-Old Virus Is Coming Back to Life — A Worrying Development

The idea sounds like science fiction: a virus frozen since the Ice Age is brought back to life in a laboratory. But researchers studying Siberian permafrost have shown that some ancient viruses can remain infectious after tens of thousands of years trapped in frozen ground.

The most worrying part is not that this specific virus is known to infect humans. The viruses revived in the study infected amoebas, not people. The concern is broader: as climate change thaws permafrost, unknown microbes may be released into a world that has never encountered them before.